RICHARD FOOT and JULIET O'NEILL, CanWest News Service

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day speaks to journalists in the foyer of the House of Commons yesterday

Eight months after the Supreme Court declared one of Canada's main anti-terrorism laws unconstitutional, the Conservative government has reintroduced the provisions, with changes it says would protect the rights of terrorism suspects.

Legislation unveiled yesterday would preserve the controversial security certificates, but create "special advocates" - lawyers, acting on behalf of the accused, with access to the secret information the government uses to detain and deport them.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day hailed security certificates as "an important tool to protect Canadians from terrorist threats," but acknowledged "the process should protect rights and freedoms in Canada."

Liberal justice critic Ujjal Dosanjh said his party would support the legislation, Bill C-3, in Parliament, thereby avoiding a defeat of the minority government and a federal election.

Dosanjh also said the Liberals would approach the government's planned reintroduction of preventive arrests and investigative hearings, two other anti-terrorism measures that his party rejected this year, "with no preconceived notions or bias."

The government's failed attempt to extend the measures for three years divided the Liberals last winter and sparked weeks of angry debate in the Commons.

Preventive arrest allows an arrest without warrant and three days of detention in a terrorism case. Investigative hearings allow judges to compel individuals to testify in terrorism investigations.

The two provisions expired under a sunset clause in March, and all three opposition parties defeated the government's bid to extend them. Critics said the move hobbled RCMP plans for investigative hearings into the Air India disaster.

Government House leader Peter Van Loan said Sunday the government would reintroduce the two measures through the Senate, even though most legislation starts in the Commons. Yesterday, officials declined to explain the unusual tactic or to say when it might happen.

For now, the government is moving ahead with changes to the security certificates regime - an extraordinary legal measure that allows the government to arrest, imprison and deport foreign nationals or permanent residents suspected of links to organized crime, or who may pose a security risk to Canada.

Introduced in the Immigration Act in 1988, the provision was strengthened after the 9/11 attacks to give authorities a fast and efficient way to remove terrorism suspects from Canada, without having to lay charges in the criminal justice system.

Last year, such certificates were challenged in the Supreme Court by three Muslim men who were accused of terrorist links and awaiting deportation.

In a unanimous ruling written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, the court said the certificates violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in two ways.

However, the court also acknowledged the necessity of such measures, noting "one of the most fundamental responsibilities of a government is to ensure the security of its citizens."

The court suspended its ruling for a year, specifically telling Parliament to fix the law and bring it in line with the Charter before February 2008.

Randall Palmer, Reuters

Published: 0 minutes ago

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada intends to appoint British-style special advocates who will be granted access to secret evidence to defend foreigners suspected of terrorism, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said on Monday.

Day introduced a bill that would create the special advocates to meet the demands of the Supreme Court. The court ruled in February that "security certificates" under which the foreign suspects are held are unconstitutional unless someone can challenge any evidence the government may be keeping secret.

The minister dismissed the idea that Canadian security could be jeopardized by the bill or that friendly countries would hesitate to share intelligence if the advocates were able to see the information.

"Many other jurisdictions have similar types of processes in place, so we don't see a problem," Day told reporters.

The certificates apply to six men currently, five Muslim Arabs and one from Sri Lanka. One of the six is in jail and the others have been released with restrictions on their movements as long as they stay in Canada. They are, however, free to leave the country.

Canada has tried to deport the men but they protest their innocence and have said they would be tortured if sent home.

Their lawyers have complained that they have not been able to defend their clients adequately without seeing the evidence against them.

The Supreme Court suspended its judgment for a year, giving Parliament until next February to pass a suitable replacement.

One of the terrorism suspects, Algerian Mohamed Harkat, said in a statement on Friday: "A modified security certificate allows indefinite detention, harsh bail and the use of secret evidence."

Day pointed out that the Supreme Court upheld the use of security certificates as long as the process was modified.

But Pearson teacher says tensions won't end 'until a kid gets killed in the park'

RENE BRUEMMER, The Gazette

Classes resume today at Lester B. Pearson High School in Montreal North. Tensions in the neighbourhood remain high after Wednesday's attack.

The general consensus yesterday at two Montreal North schools in the eye of a public tempest was that the swarming was an isolated incident.

Parents, teachers and students called last week's vicious beating of two white girls at the hands, shoes and boots of a group of girls from another school - most of them black - a rare occurrence between two institutions that have had civil relations over the years.

"Same thing happened at my high school when I was growing up in LaSalle," said Mike, the parent of two children at Lester B. Pearson High School who spoke on condition that his full name not be used. "Guys would come over to fight us.

"There have always been these kinds of problems."

But the reassurances come as little comfort to many parents and students in an era where the rise of street gangs, guns and YouTube can quickly transform an innocuous schoolyard tussle into tragedy. In addition, one teacher said, parents can now see school violence for themselves on the Net, heightening their fears.

And the impetus for this beating - one of the victims has admitted to screaming a racial epithet at a group of black girls in response to having ice cubes flung at her - is an example of the racial, linguistic and socio-economic tensions that are unspoken and tolerated between the two solitudes at these schools, and everywhere else, observers said.

That relations are generally calm between the two schools is almost surprising. Lester B. Pearson High School is among the largest in the English Montreal School Board with 1,500 students, "95 per cent of whom are Italian," one teacher estimated. Many of these students are bused in to the Montreal North school from the more affluent Rivière des Prairies, and they are educated in English.

Less than one kilometre away is the even larger École secondaire Henri Bourassa, with 2,000 students from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, educated in French, and most from Montreal North, which is among the poorest districts in the city.

The average household income is $37,000, well below the Quebec average of $50,000.

Montreal North has been classified by Statistics Canada as one of the city's hot spots for crime, where the incidence of violence is significantly higher than in other neighbourhoods.

"They hired security guards to chase off the gang members who used to hang out by the exits in their luxury cars," Grade 11 Henri Bourassa student Daniel said. "The girls used to run out to see them. They still come around, but they turn the music down lower, and they stay farther from school."

Yet incidents between the schools are relatively rare. Three years ago, a student at Lester B. Pearson used the same racial epithet and provoked the rage of more than 200 students at Bourassa, who gathered outside Lester B. Pearson and chanted their high school's slogan in a threatening show of force.

Students at Henri Bourassa, both black and white, wrote last week's incident off to a few bad apples. Racial tension is rare, most said. If anything, it would be more of a "French against English" thing.

imam deported; Facing arrest on return to tunisia. Originally granted refugee status, religious leader was ordered out because he hid criminal record

IRWIN BLOCK, The Gazette

Imam Saïd Jaziri, in 2005, warned supporters at the Al-Qod mosque in Rosemont that he faced persecution if he returns to Tunisia.

Despite appeals from Amnesty International and Muslim supporters, a Montreal imam originally granted refugee status was to have been deported to Tunisia yesterday.

For security reasons, the Canada Border Services Agency, charged with his removal, refused to reveal any details of the departure of Saïd Jaziri, 36.

Agency spokesperson Érik Paradis confirmed last night that Jaziri's flight left, but couldn't say when he was to arrive in Tunisia.

On Wednesday, an Immigration and Refugee Board commissioner rejected Jaziri's bid to spend his last few days in Canada at home in Laval with his wife, Nancy Ann Adams, who is expecting to give birth to their first child on Dec. 20.

Following his testimony, commissioner Dianne Tordorf said Jaziri had "serious credibility problems" and officials feared he would not show up for his departure. He was ordered held in custody.

Jaziri lost his refugee status because he had concealed the fact he was convicted and served jail time in France for an assault on an individual whose actions had led to the closing of a prayer room.

The Ottawa-based Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations had asked Immigration Minister Diane Finley to stop the deportation because Jaziri faces "a serious risk of torture" in Tunisia.

Amnesty International's francophone section in Canada said the risk stems from his having been sentenced in absentia in Tunisia to three years in prison in December 1991 for links to a "non-authorized association" and distributing pamphlets.

However, at his immigration hearing, an Immigration and Refugee Board official said Jaziri had not been not harmed when he returned to Tunisia from France for a visit.

Chile has announced an amnesty for about 20,000 illegal immigrants from elsewhere in Latin America working in the country's black economy.

Some 15,000 Peruvians and 2,000 Bolivians will be entitled to full residency permits in what is thought to be Chile's largest such move to date.

Another 3,000 immigrants from Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America will also qualify.

Interior Minister Belisario Velasco urged immigrants to come forward.

He said they should not fear reprisals for joining the programme which, he said, was intended to normalise immigration in the country.

Correspondents say there is a significant problem with illegal immigration among South American countries, with very little legal recourse for Bolivian and Peruvian immigrants working in the informal sector.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Jordana Huber, CanWest News Service

BRAMPTON, Ont. - A judge denied bail on Monday to one of the 14 men accused in connection with Canada's largest terrorist sweep.

Shrugging his shoulders as he looked back from the prisoner's box at family gathered in a Brampton courtroom, Steven Chand, 26, appeared visibly upset after Justice Fletcher Dawson denied him bail.

Chand is the first of 14 men to have a second bail hearing after the Crown filed a direct indictment on Sept. 24 to move the matter directly to trial. The tactic put an end to nearly four months of preliminary hearings, which defence lawyers had hoped to use to test the strength of the Crown's case against their clients.

The accused were rearrested, recharged and are in the process of receiving new bail hearings before going to trial.

Police allege the men, mostly in their 20s, were conspiring to storm Parliament Hill and take politicians hostages as well as use bombs made of fertilizer to blow up offices of CSIS and the RCMP. Police also allege that the group was plotting to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the accused continue to push for a resumption in preliminary hearings.

Michael Moon, a lawyer for Chand, said he would review Dawson's decision to determine if there were any grounds for an appeal.

"It is very difficult not to be able to relate to the public the degree to which Steven Chand should not be in custody," said Moon, noting the publication ban on the case. "Mr. Chand is not a threat, he's not a jihadist in the Westernized sense. He is not a terrorist, so he shouldn't be in custody."

Monday's ruling came only hours before lawyers for the accused were set to present judicial pretrial motions.

Raymond Motee, a lawyer for one of the two men currently out on bail, said the attorneys would discuss an abuse of process motion which calls for the Crown to proceed with a preliminary trial.

Defence lawyers were outraged last month at the direct indictment, which put an end to the testimony of the Crown's key witness, police informant Mubin Shaikh.

James Stribopoulos, a criminal law professor at York University's Osgoode Hall, said direct indictments are exceptional but have been upheld under constitutional challenges.

"They would have to show there is an 'oblique' motive, that is the word the case law uses, on the part of prosecutors - essentially, that this was being done to subvert the right to a fair trial," said Stribopoulos. "That is a very difficult thing to show."

But Moon is among several lawyers who said he is considering all his options for what he sees as politically motivated case. "I think there is tremendous pressure from Ottawa to move this along," said Moon, "irrespective of whether or not the rights of the accused are abrogated in doing so."

Eighteen men were arrested last summer and charged with plotting a series of attacks in southern Ontario.

Since then, charges against three of the youths have been stayed, while the fourth youth is scheduled to go to trial next year.

Charges against the accused also include participating in or contributing to the activity, directly or indirectly, of a terrorist group and the commission of indictable offences including explosives and firearm offences for the benefit of or in association with a terrorist group.

The Gazette

Despite concerns about the use of taser guns, a Quebec government official said today that the devices are effective and have saved lives.

"In many cases, they have saved lives and avoided more serious injury to a suspect or a police officer," said Robert Lafreniere, an assistant deputy minister in the Public Security Department.

There will be no moratorium on the use of tasers pending several police investigations, as requested last week by Amnesty International Canada, Lafreniere said.

"We can't deprive (the police) of the use of tasers knowing what we know," he said at a news conference at the police academy in Nicolet.

The use of the stun guns by police has come under scrutiny after two Quebecers died within a month after being tasered. Also, a 40-year-old Polish man died this month after he was subdued by a taser gun at the Vancouver International Airport.

Taser guns use two barbed darts to deliver a jolt of electricity up to 50,000 volts. They are intended to temporary paralyze someone by causing muscles to contract uncontrollably.

Police use the weapons to subdue out-of-control persons rather than using their firearm. Officers using tasers have been properly trained and use the weapons only when necessary, Lafreniere said.

Amnesty International Canada says 18 people have died in Canada after being hit by tasers since 2001.

In Montreal, Quilem Registre, 38, died in hospital last week, several days after he had been tasered by Montreal police in the St. Michel district. Registre was suspected of drunk driving when he was stopped by police. The vehicle he was driving hit several cars. Police said they subdued him with a taser after he became aggressive.

Tests have confirmed that cocaine was present in Registre's body when he was admitted to hospital soon after the incident. The coroner's office has not determined an exact cause of death.

Claudio Castagnetta, 32, died in Quebec City on Sept. 20, two days after police officers there used a taser on him. His death is also under investigation.

Police forces in Quebec used taser guns 51 times in 2006 with no deaths.

In February 2006, the Public Security Department sent guidelines to the eight Quebec police forces that use tasers. It recommended that officers not fire multiple shots at a suspect, refrain from hitting the head, neck or genital area, and that officers using tasers be properly trained and that police departments keep a log of the number of times tasers are fired.

The committee preparing a report on taser use in Quebec will submit its findings to Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis shortly. The report, which was due in December, has been fast-tracked following the two recent taser shootings in Quebec.

Claude Dauphin, the city of Montreal executive committee member in charge of public safety, said not all Montreal police officers have access to tasers.

"It is the SWAT team, special units and officers at detention centres who have them," he said.

In many cases, when officers pull out the taser guns, aggressive people change their behaviour immediately, he said.

City councillor Marvin Rotrand said Dauphin should impose a moratorium on the use of tasers in Montreal until his department conducts a study on whether they are safe and effective. Rotrand contends there has not been enough debate on the use of stun guns, which Montreal police began using at the end of 2000.

Kevin Dougherty, The Gazette

QUEBEC - The ruling Liberals and the Parti Quebecois traded claims today that the other party was creating two classes of citizens.

The Liberals charged that Bill 195, a PQ bill to establish Quebec citizenship, would create two types of Quebecers.

The PQ, citing Liberal plans to reduce the immigration department payroll, said the government is creating two kinds of newcomers.

PQ members have been on the defensive over Bill 195 which states that Quebec citizenshipwould be required to run for school board, municipal or National Assembly elections.

Canadian citizenship alone, however, would still be sufficient to vote in those same elections.

Today the PQ seized on a report that the immigration department is cutting its staff by 11 per cent, at the same time that it has proposed welcoming an additional 10,000 immigrants a year.

"By reducing the budget of the department destined to better integrate and francize immigrants, the Charest government is creating two classes of citizens, those who speak French and those who don't," said PQ immigration critic Martin Lemay.

Bill 195 would make all Canadian citizens living in the province Quebec citizens as well when it is passed, independent of their ability to speak French.

But newcomers - from another country or another province - could only become Quebec citizens by demonstrating three years after arriving their capacity to get by in French.

The PQ, with 35 MNAs, is the third party in the assembly and Bill 195 has no chance of becoming law. But Bill 195 has shifted the spotlight away from Action democratique du Quebec leader Mario Dumont and on to PQ leader Pauline Marois.

"We don't take it seriously," said Catherine Morissette, the ADQ immigration critic.

"We have the impression it was written on the corner of a table to have something to propose to the presidents of the (PQ) riding associations."

PQ leader Pauline Marois presented Bill 195 on the eve of a weekend meeting of her party's riding and regional presidents.

Morissette also questioned how serious the government is about welcoming new immigrants.

"The immigration budget comes from the federal government," Morissette said. Under a federal-Quebec agreement on immigration, the province will get $224 million from Ottawa this year.

But Quebec's immigration budget totals $110 million, Morissette said.

Immigration Minister Yolande James summoned reporters, before a ceremony to welcome new citizens, to say that only 32 administrative positions have been eliminated in her department as part of an ongoing process to reduce the size of government.

James insisted that services to immigrants would not be reduced. "The hours worked will be the same," she said.

To counter the PQ's position, she added that the PQ citizenship proposal would reduce from five to three years the time immigrants have to learn French.

The Liberal government offers French courses for five years, she noted.

Rene Bruemmer, The Gazette

An isolated incident, most people at the schools in the eye of a public tempest opined today. A vicious beating of two white girls at the hands, shoes and boots of a group of girls from another school, most of them black, was a rare occurrence between two institutions who have had civil relations over the years.

"Same thing happened at my high school when I was growing up in LaSalle," said Mike, the parent of two children at Lester B. Pearson high school who preferred not to give his full name. "Guys would come over to fight us. There have always been these kinds of problems."

But the reassurances come as little comfort to many parents and students in an era where the preponderance of street gangs, guns and YouTube can quickly transform innocuous schoolyard tussle into tragedy.

And the impetus for this beating - one of the victims has admitted to screaming a racially epithet at a group of black girls in response to having ice cubes flung at her - is an example of the racial, linguistic and socio-economic tensions that exist unspoken and are tolerated between the two solitudes at these schools and everywhere else, observers said.

That relations are generally calm between the two schools is almost surprising. Lester B. Pearson High School is among the largest in the English Montreal School Board with 1,500 students, "95 per cent of whom are Italian," one teacher estimated. Many of these students are bussed in to the Montreal North school from the more affluent Riviere des Prairies, and they're educated in English.

Less than a kilometre away is the even larger Ecole secondaire Henri Bourassa, with 2,000 students from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, educated in French, and most from Montreal North, which is among the poorest districts in the city.

The average income of those over 15 in the region's federal electoral district was $21,000, according to 2003 census figures. The average household income is $37,000, well below the Quebec average of $50,000.

Montreal North has been classified as one of the city's "hot spots" for crime by Statistics Canada, where the incidence of violent crime is significantly higher than in other neighbourhoods.

"They hired security guards to chase off the gang members who used to hang out by the exits in their luxury cars," said Grade 11 Henri Bourassa student Daniel. "The girls used to run out to see them. They still come around, but they turn the music down lower, and they stay farther from school."

Yet incidents between the schools are relatively rare. Three years ago, the same racial epithet between two students at Lester B. Pearson provoked the rage of more than 200 students at Bourassa, who gathered outside Lester B. Pearson and chanted their high school slogan in a show of force and threat.

Students at Henri Bourassa, both black and white, wrote last week's incident off to a few bad apples. Racial tension was rare, most said. If anything, it would be more of an "French against English" thing.

"The only bad thing is there are a lot of guns in this neighbourhood," said Grade 11 student Gianluca. "Things can go bad quickly." Fights in the school itself are common, "especially between girls," he said.

"We're always in groups - it's safer," said Daniel. "But is has a kind of ghetto effect, where we don't talk to each other."

One teacher at Lester B. Pearson who asked not to be named disputed the "isolated incident" theory.

"Something has to be done," he said. "(This type of incident) is an annual thing. ... There is a lot of racial tension. I hear it from the kids. And there's socioeconomic tension."

(Girls from Bourassa told reporters they dislike Lester B. Pearson students because "they look down on us.")

"But all we do is keep ignoring the issue, and say 'It's all going to blow over.'

"It's not going to blow over until a kid gets killed in the park and people finally do something."

Lester B. Pearson has to make an effort to "build bridges" by setting up meetings between the schools, and organizing multicultural days for students who have had little exposure to different ethnic backgrounds, the teacher said. Students at Lester B. Pearson aren't allowed to leave school grounds until they reach Grade 9.

"And it's always the Grade 9 kids, who aren't properly socialized in society, who get into trouble.

"I call it the disease," he said. "It's a virus that keeps spreading until someone does something about it. If we don't confront it, it will continue."

Much of the blame falls on parents and grandparents, he noted, who either don't teach their children to respect others, or pass on their own prejudices.

Two Grade 11 girls from Henri Bourassa who said they had seen little fighting, had a different theory for the the perceived scope of the problem at their school.

"When are all the journalists going to stop coming," asked Sasy, 16, gesturing toward the television trucks and cameras parked in front of her school. "I want them to go away so things can get back to normal.

It's the latest addition to the immigration wars raging in this country: an award-winning computer game designed to let players walk in the shoes of five young immigrants -- including taking a hike right out of the country.

Players maneuver through the often tricky terrain of immigration law. Report domestic violence to police, and you risk arrest if you're here illegally. Shoplift a loaf of bread and you might end up in immigration court. Join the military without proper legal status and you can be all that you can be -- back in your home country.

Called 'ICED!', a bit of wordplay on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the nation's top immigration agency, it's among the growing genre of online computer games that focuses on serious social issues.

'People are really ready for new kinds of games,' said Mallika Dutt, executive director of the New York-based human rights organization Breakthrough, which oversaw creation of 'ICED! 'What we're trying to do is create a whole new genre of video games, games about real-world issues with real-world impact.'

Free and downloadable

About 100 games with social themes have hit the Internet in recent years, said Suzanne Seggerman, president of the New York-based Games for Change, which supports developers of socially conscious games. They are typically free and downloadable.

'Darfur Is Dying,' about hunger in Sudan, is one of the most popular, with more than 2 million visitors, Seggerman said. Others include 'Ayiti: The Cost of Life,' which allows the player to be an impoverished person in Haiti; 'Food Force,' which lets players become humanitarian workers on a famine-stricken island, and 'Peacemaker,' in which players may be the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president.

The creators of these titles aren't your classic game designers. 'ICED!' and 'Ayiti' were conceived by high school students participating in an after-school project run by Global Kids of New York, a nonprofit education organization. 'Food Force' was created by the United Nations World Food Program.

'ICED!' generated buzz in the blogosphere and national media after winning a Games For Change award this summer. Advocates say the game, and others like it, are excellent tools to reach young audiences. The goal, Dutt said, is to let players know the intended -- and unintended -- consequences of immigration reforms that expanded the types of crimes for which legal and illegal immigrants can be detained or deported.

Players can assume the lives of one of five teen characters: an illegal immigrant, a worker holding a green card, a college student on a student visa, someone seeking asylum and an immigrant who thinks he's a U.S. citizen.

As they roam around a large city, visiting a grocery store or riding the subway, they face choices. Make the right choice and you get points. Make the wrong choice and an immigration agents pops up on the screen. Depending on what the law says about that particular offense, you might be sent to a jail or a deportation hearing.

'We've been amazed at public response,' said Dutt, 'and the game hasn't even been released.' The game is slated for release this month or next, she said.

'ICED!' is the antidote to anti-immigration games surfacing on the Web, such as 'Border Patrol,' in which players shoot as many Mexicans as possible as they run across the U.S. border. The game's objective: 'to keep them out at any cost.'

Officials at ICE say they haven't seen it. But they say such computer entertainment shouldn't be confused with reality. 'This is a video game, and most people realize that video games are a work of fiction,' said Tim Counts, a spokesman for ICE's Bloomington office.

But for immigrant rights groups, 'ICED!' could be a useful new tool to catch the attention of their technology-savvy audience.

'I think it's really good idea,' said Alondra Espejel, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network, which frequently works with high school and college students.

The activist-game trend got a boost in June, when Microsoft and Games for Change announced a joint commitment to explore new ways to unite the worlds of digital gaming and social change. Microsoft issued an 'Xbox 360 Games for Change Challenge' to college students worldwide to create the best game about global warming.

Nora Paul, director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota, said the key to the success of socially conscious games is how technologically advanced they are and whether they accomplish their political objectives.

'Some of the serious games I've seen are either too serious or so complicated that it's hard to even get in the game. Other ones that are clearly focused on some particular message or outcome can be more effective.'

Paul hasn't seen 'ICED!' yet. But she admits she couldn't resist playing 'Darfur Is Dying.' Game designers hope others get hooked, too.

Said Seggerman: 'We think these games have an extraordinary potential for good.'

MONTREAL — More than 40 South American asylum seekers have been arrested in the past week near the Quebec-Vermont border in what an official said was a crackdown against an unusual surge in illegal immigration.

"This is a major spike in the number of people crossing illegally. It's a significant number," said Dominique McNeely, a spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency.

Four of those arrested were charged: two for smuggling people and two for being in Canada illegally, Mr. McNeely said.

Most of the 43 people apprehended are from Colombia, and some are Venezuelans, said Claire Desgens, a Sherbrooke legal-aid lawyer contacted by the newcomers.

One of the four people charged is a U.S. citizen, and another is a Colombian with permanent residency status in the United States.

The arrests were made by CBSA and the RCMP around Stanstead, a small town sitting right on the border, 165 kilometres southeast of Montreal.

The majority of the 43 have been released and, having applied for refugee status, are now in the Montreal area awaiting a hearing before the Immigration Refugee Board, Ms. Desgens said.

Imam Said Jaziri, who will appear before the immigration board on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007.

The Al Qods mosque in northeast Montreal, where Said Jaziri practices as an imam

CTV.ca News Staff

A Montreal imam who allegedly lied about his criminal status will appear before an Immigration and Refugee board on Wednesday. His pregnant wife says he faces death if deported back to his native Tunisia.

"It's not just an impression I have, it's a certainty," imam Said Jaziri's Canadian-born wife, Nancy-Ann Adams, told reporters. "There's no doubt about it."

Jaziri was taken into custody Monday by Canada Border Services Agency officials, under the Immigration and Refugee Status Act.

The imam had gone to a meeting at one of the agency's offices, according to spokesperson Kareen Dionne. His wife -- who is eight-months pregnant -- witnessed the arrest.

"I have diabetes -- type 1 -- so this is dangerous for me and the life of my child," she told CTV Montreal by phone.

"My husband is not here. Who is going to care for me? Who is going to help me now?"

The imam will be held at a detention centre in Laval until he appears before the board.

Adams said Jaziri isn't a flight risk, and will be tortured to death if deported back to the country of his birth.

Dionne would not divulge details about Jaziri's case, but said that during Wednesday's hearing the agency will reveal why it thought his detention was necessary.

"Generally, the motives that are invoked to ask for the detention of an individual is based on the risk of that individual not showing up either for an audience review or for the removal process," she told The Canadian Press.

The board revoked Jaziri's refugee status last December, which he had obtained several years earlier in 1998.

Jaziri then took refuge inside the Al Qods mosque in northeast Montreal, where he acts as imam. He took the same action in 2005, when he first heard officials were trying to revoke his status.

The board alleges Jaziri never mentioned he had a criminal record in France, and that he exaggerated the risks he faces if he returned to Tunisia.

But Jaziri has said his criminal record was expunged after he helped French security forces, and the threat of torture and death in Tunisia is only too real.

He tried to reclaim his refugee status by taking his case to the Federal Court and the Quebec Court of Appeal, but those attempts have so far failed.

One of the members of his mosque, Mohammed Alaoui, urged Montreal's Muslims to throw their support behind Jaziri.

"He's a man who tells the truth, the whole truth," said Alaoui.

Jaziri, a well-known imam in Montreal, had planned on creating a massive mosque in the city.

Nearly two years ago, he led a local protest, criticizing cartoons that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

CanWest News Service

Forty people were arrested, including some charged with human smuggling, in an RCMP operation conducted near the U.S. border.

Four individuals are being charged with either human smuggling or not reporting to a border station.

Officials would not provide details about the remaining individuals arrested last week in the vicinity of Stanstead, about 150 kilometres southeast of Montreal, but a lawyer says they are claiming refugee status.

Intercepted and arrested," confirmed Dominique McNeely of the CBSA. "Charges were laid by (the CBSA) against four individuals in virtue of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act."

"It's rare that we arrest such a large number of people; this doesn't happen often," McNeely said.

"During the operation some 40 individuals wereRCMP Cpl. Luc Bessette said the Mounties expected to announce today the results of the "targeted operation," which also involved U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"Following information obtained via our partners we conducted a strategic operation last week resulting in rather impressive results," he said, without providing further details.

"Most of the people who have entered are claiming refugee status," said Claire Desgens, the lawyer for a man charged with not reporting to the border station. A vast majority of those arrested were Colombian, she said. Those being criminally charged are not claiming refugee status because they are either U.S. nationals or permanent residents there.

U.S. and Canadian authorities announced this year they would seek to close three unguarded side streets that run across that border, but barriers have yet to the put in place McNeely said.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The battle between Fatah al-Islam militants and the army in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon may have ended, but the crisis continues for Nahr al-Bared's 31,000 former residents.

Most have lost homes, possessions and livelihoods, while some also lost relatives among the 40 civilians killed. Many displaced live in a nearby refugee camp in cramped conditions, unsure of their future.

About 400 families were granted permission to return to the camp on 10 October.

Charkaoui also must adhere to all conditions 'to ensure any danger is neutralized'

JAN RAVENSBERGEN, The Gazette

Published: 6 hours ago

Adil Charkaoui, a Montreal man accused by the federal government of being an Al-Qa'ida sleeper agent, will have to keep wearing a global positioning system device that has monitored his every move since early 2005, a judge ruled yesterday.

- To be accompanied at all times by specified people when outside his home.

- Not to use the Internet or cellphones.

Charkaoui was imprisoned in May 2003 under a federal security certificate. He stayed behind bars, because of government allegations that he was a sleeper agent for the Al-Qa'ida terrorist network, until his conditional release Feb. 17, 2005.

He has repeatedly demanded that all evidence against him be made public.

In an August hearing, his lawyers argued that Ahmed Ressam - a Montrealer convicted in 2001 of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport - has retracted allegations against Charkaoui.

But in his ruling, Noël said he could not conclude Ressam had lied on two separate occasions in January 2002, when Ressam told the Canadian Security Intelligence Service he recognized Charkaoui's picture and knew him as Zubeir Al-Maghrebi.

Ressam remains jailed in the United States.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in February this year that the security-certificate process used against Charkaoui violated the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and gave Parliament a year to draft a new approach.

Because of the Supreme Court ruling, Charkaoui's lawyers argued before Noël, any conditions imposed on Charkaoui are illegal.

MONTREAL — Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe cranked up the nationalist rhetoric in a speech Wednesday that shows he is banking on Quebec's politics of identity to beat back the surging Conservative forces in the next election.

Speaking to about 200 students at the University of Montreal, Mr. Duceppe blasted the “Canadian ideology of multiculturalism” and accused the federal government of failing to protect the French language in Quebec. Over all, Mr. Duceppe said, the other federal parties “are Canadian” and not up to the job when it comes to defending Quebec culture.

“The difference is that the Bloc is a party that is truly from Quebec, only from Quebec, totally from Quebec,” Mr. Duceppe said.

The Bloc's new strategy is based on the fact that many of its old warhorses, such as the fiscal imbalance and the recognition of Quebec as a nation, have been addressed by the Conservative Party since Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to office last year.

The Conservatives showed their newfound force last month by winning a by-election in a traditional Bloc stronghold in the riding of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean.

Since then, the Bloc has strived to distinguish and distance itself from the Conservatives. For the longest time, the Bloc positioned itself as the sole protector of “Quebec's interests” on the political scene. Now, the Bloc argues that its job in Ottawa is also to defend “Quebec's values,” suggesting that Conservative values are foreign to the province.

Mr. Duceppe acknowledged that the Conservative government has recognized Quebec as a nation within a united Canada, but he added that it's time for Mr. Harper to “walk the talk” and give meaning to the gesture.

“If the Canadian parties are coherent with this recognition, they must understand that the Quebec nation and the French language go hand in hand,” Mr. Duceppe said. “The first concrete action that must follow is the recognition that Quebeckers form a francophone nation in America, not a bilingual nation.”

The Bloc, Mr. Duceppe announced, will present amendments this fall to the Official Languages Act and the Canada Labour Code to extend the reach of Quebec's Bill 101 in areas of federal jurisdiction.

Bill 101 already ensures that the main working language in most big Quebec businesses is French, but the Bloc now wants that to apply to banks and telecommunications companies, which are federally regulated. The Bloc also wants the preamble to the Official Languages Act to recognize that French is Quebec's only official language.

Before Mr. Harper became Prime Minister, he stated that he did not agree with all the elements of Bill 101, Mr. Duceppe went on to point out.

“It's clear that Mr. Harper's openness to Quebec, so far, has been political marketing. It's nothing but words, and we are worth more than words,” he said.

On the issue of immigrants, Mr. Duceppe said they must “integrate” in Quebec's francophone culture, a position that is incompatible with Ottawa's multiculturalism policy that promotes the preservation of various ethnic heritages.

The Conservatives shot back that unlike the Bloc, they obtain concrete results for Quebeckers.

“Mr. Duceppe's statement is yet another example of the Bloc trying to justify its existence in Ottawa. They can issue a news release every day, but why should Quebeckers continue to support a party that has delivered nothing, accomplished nothing and done nothing for the past 17 years?” said Pierre Lemieux, Conservative parliamentary secretary for official languages.

University of Sherbrooke political scientist Jean-Herman Guay said the Bloc, like the Parti Québécois on the provincial scene, needs to refocus its message after acknowledging there is no hope of a referendum on Quebec sovereignty in the near future. He said that speaking about issues such as the French language and the Quebec nation is a way for Mr. Duceppe to reconnect with Quebec nationalists who are attracted to the Conservative Party and the provincial Action Démocratique du Québec.

The U.S. government has angered Canada's airlines with a proposal to order them to hand over personal information about passengers who take flights that go south over U.S. airspace en route to sunny destinations.

Although the planes wouldn't take off from or land on American soil, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is proposing that Canadian carriers send passenger manifests up to 72 hours in advance of departures to popular winter escapes such as Mexico and the Caribbean.

Under the U.S. Secure Flight program, there would be the same requirement to transmit data on northbound return flights from foreign holiday destinations.

The broader goal is to “prevent certain known or suspected terrorists from boarding aircraft where they may jeopardize the lives of passengers and others,” Homeland Security's Transportation Security Agency said in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

The deadline to file comments on the proposal is Oct. 22, and the Air Transport Association of Canada is gearing up to voice its outrage on behalf of Canadian airlines.

“We're already vetting our passengers against the Canadian no-fly list,” ATAC policy vice-president Fred Gaspar said yesterday in an interview.

“If you happen to go through some part of U.S. airspace, the U.S. may end up intercepting your plane and forcing you to land. That's a scenario that we don't want to go through.”

This is the TSA's latest effort to toughen passenger screening. It introduced Secure Flight plans in 2004, but suspended their development early last year amid widespread criticisms from privacy advocates.

Mr. Gaspar said ATAC officials thought Canadian carriers had managed to escape the widening net of the TSA, so they were shocked to recently discover the proposed changes, after combing through a 37-page document in the U.S. government's Federal Register.

“Our position is that it just does not make sense in light of the fact that Canada has its own no-fly list, which was developed very closely and in co-operation with U.S authorities,” he said.

The U.S. plan will be a major headache for Canadian airlines and tour operators because they will need to assign staff to assemble the data, and also ensure their software is compatible with the U.S. electronic acceptance systems.

“There are also privacy concerns,” Mr. Gaspar said. “This is a data-fishing expedition by a third-party government. What makes this problematic is that you're heading to another country and you're not trying to get into the U.S. What's the point of this co-operative approach if our list isn't deemed to be good enough for the United States? They're using a hammer to swat a fly.”

Canadian airlines would be required to turn over the full name of passengers as it appears on passports, date of birth, gender and, if applicable, the so-called “known traveller number” – a unique number assigned to travellers that the U.S. government has previously deemed do not pose a security threat. Over and above that information, the TSA will encourage Canadian carriers to send other data, if available, including a passenger's itinerary with the departure airport code, airline, departure time, arrival time and arrival airport code.

The TSA proposal would cover flights operating between two international points that go over the airspace of the lower 48 U.S. states, affecting mostly those run by Canadian carriers to winter getaways such as Mexico, Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Excluded from the plan are flights between two points in Canada, such as Toronto-Vancouver, in which the flight path temporarily crosses into U.S. airspace.

With the strong loonie making sunny destinations more affordable, a busy winter holiday season is expected for Canadian firms such as Air Canada, WestJet Airlines Ltd. and Transat A.T. Inc., analysts say.

Canada's no-fly list, the Passenger Protect program, took effect on June 18. Those named on the Canadian list are believed to pose an immediate threat to air security, but that list of up to 2,000 names is much shorter than the U.S. terrorist watch list developed after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Separately, the International Air Transport Association plans to raise its concerns about the TSA's sweeping data-collection proposals that would cover flights between U.S. cities, as wells as flights between the United States and foreign airports. After a final ruling is published, airlines would have 60 days to comply.

The TSA said it is committed to safeguarding passenger privacy. “The vast majority of records are expected to be destroyed within seven days of completion of directional travel,” the TSA said in the Federal Register.

“Personal information will only be disclosed to, and used by, authorized individuals who have a need to know the information in order to perform their duties.”

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

CanWest News Service

Lawyers for Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar say his bid to sue the U.S. government for secretly shipping him to Syria for torture is unaffected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision yesterday to reject another high-profile "extraordinary rendition" case.

They outlined differences between Arar's case and that of Khaled al-Masri, a Lebanese-born German citizen who has also seen lower courts cite national security concerns for refusing to consider his accusation the CIA kidnapped and tortured him.

"The state secrets assertion in (Arar's) case seeks to protect the reasons U.S. officials sent him to Syria instead of Canada, not whether they were even involved in his rendition, as in Mr. al-Masri's case," said the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York.

The centre's executive director, Vincent Warren, said exposing new U.S. secrets is unnecessary because the long-running Canadian judicial inquiry into Arar's case exposed a "significant amount" of what had been secret about the U.S. involvement in his deportation.

"In the al-Masri case the U.S. government would never admit it was even involved in his rendition, whereas in Maher Arar's case it is quite clear that it was involved," Warren said. "We've got the goods on the U.S. government and the court doesn't need to rely on secret government information in order to determine what happened."

Al-Masri says the CIA abducted him in Macedonia in 2003 and flew him to Afghanistan for interrogation.

The Supreme Court decision in his appeal means a lower court's ruling that his case can't be heard on national security grounds will stand.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

The French government aims to deport 25,000 illegal immigrants by the end of the year. But the police snatch squads aren't having it all their own way. A new 'resistance' has sprung up, inspired by memories of wartime deportations and shame at the way France treats its ethnic minorities. Angelique Chrisafis reports

Wednesday October 3, 2007

A Muslim girl has two French flags and a headband which reads "fraternity" on her headscarf during a protest defending religious headgear in 2004. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters

Like most illegal immigrants working in Paris's textile sweat shops, nail bars or restaurants, Chulan Liu kept her head down. A 51-year-old divorcee who left her only son in northern China this summer, she spoke no French. But she knew the name Nicolas Sarkozy and his order for police to round up thousands of France's "sans papiers" - immigrants with no papers and no right to stay.

The parents of a Canadian boy who, with them, was held for nearly six weeks at a controversial U.S. immigration facility this year, were granted an "approval in principle" for permanent residence in Canada yesterday.

The decision to allow Kevin Yourdkhani's parents to stay was based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and made in the best interests of their 10-year-old son, their lawyer said.

"Approval in principle is the difficult step to meet and that normally takes two or three years," Andrew Brouwer said. "The remaining step is to do the security, criminality and medical screening ... and I don't anticipate any problems with that."

Majid Yourdkhani and Masomeh Alibegi could become permanent residents as early as next month. "I'm very happy now because my mom and my dad is happy," Kevin said yesterday.

The decision marks a new beginning for the family who, just months ago, had found themselves in international limbo.

Mr. Yourdkhani and Ms. Alibegi initially fled Iran for Canada in 1995 to seek political asylum. In 1997, the couple's only son, Kevin, was born. He attended a Toronto school until Grade 3, when his parents' refugee claim - based on fear of persecution in Iran - was denied, and the family was deported in December, 2005.

Upon their arrival in Tehran, Mr. Yourdkhani said, he was taken away from his family to a prison cell, where he was detained, beaten and tortured for three months.

Once he was released, friends helped the family connect with a people smuggler in Tehran, who said he would help them get back into Canada.

On the last leg of their trip, their flight made an unscheduled stop on U.S. soil because of a medical emergency, and they were found to be travelling on fake passports. They were held at a Texas detention centre from Feb. 12 to March 21.

The facility was the subject of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the family was being held in "inhumane conditions."

After a flurry of media coverage on the family's situation, including a letter Kevin wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper describing his cell, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley issued the parents a six-month, renewable temporary resident permit, three days after the U.S. government declared it had sufficient reason to believe the family faced a credible risk of persecution if returned to Iran.

Since their return to Canada, Mr. Yourdkhani has been working on a temporary work visa at a pizza parlour. But the approval in principle means he and his wife are eligible to apply for an open work permit, allowing them to work for most employers in Canada while they await final approval for permanent residence.

Meanwhile, Kevin returned to school in September after nearly two years away. But, he said yesterday, children at his old school were taunting him about his family's ordeal, and he had to change schools.

"It wasn't so good. They keep bothering me. They say, 'Kevin, you was really a bad guy? You was in jail? What did you do? What did your parents [do]?' " he said.

He says he is happy at his new school and likes his teacher.

"It's way better. Nobody knows about ... anything that happened. I can relax a little bit. I have got some new friends."

About us:

Solidarity Across Borders is a Montreal-based network of migrants, immigrants, refugees, and allies engaged in the struggle for justice and dignity for migrants and refugees. We mobilize for all who are caught in the immigration regime and for all who fight against deportations, detentions, and security certificates.